Your batting average, sadly, must still be represented using scientific notation...

Priceless. I'll have to remember that one.

"While some Democrats vote for measures like this out of standard, craven political fear, many -- perhaps most -- do so because they simply believe in the National Security and Surveillance State."

You say allegations of pure spinelessness give too much credit, and you with the above grant that many if not most(!) are making what they believe are principled stands. Yet the thrust of your posts and your general critique of the party is that it capitulates, not that it is outright wrong on policy.

I have long felt that you give the sincerity of many democrats' wrongness short shrift. (Unfortunately Mr. Obama's own words do not allow this possibility to apply to him.) I was struck for example by Sen. Rockefeller's seeming sincerity on the floor about the Constitutionality of the FISA Updates, but perhaps I was taken in.

Is this not an important distinction that you have admitted, however? Or is it immaterial?

And can you further explain the reasoning behind your view that it is less honorable to be sincerely wrong than it is to capitulate on core principles for illusory political advantage?

Think they'll take a breather now? Take a look at what Mukasey argued before a congressional commmittee this morning:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/09/durbin-mukasey/

MUKASEY: Any CIA agent who acted in good faith reliance on an opinion from the Department of Justice cannot and should not be prosecuted because if they are, any opinion from the Department of Justice to anyone on the frontline is totally and completely useless. […]

Won't be long now before their only concession will be to ask Miss Manners which fork is most appropriate to use in poking someone's eye out.

But only if she's been pre-qualified as a Republican hack.

You have put in a huge amount of high quality work on this issue, Mr. Greenwald, and I appreciate the effort.

You've explained the issues, the Constitutional violations, the politics, extremely well.

I wish we had prevailed, but now that we haven't, all of the contributions I was going to direct to Obama will now to the ACLU, the EFF, ActBlue, and others who opposed this bill and the type of business-as-usual politics it represents.

Thanks again for taking a lead in publicizing this issue and drumming up opposition to it.

So it appears that now the Executive Branch writes the laws (in the form of "legal opinions"). Further, many of those who were tried at Nuremberg ought to be able to appeal their convictions, as "following orders" is now a valid excuse for illegal behavior.

I left my tin hat home today so I don't think it's explicitly blackmail or conspiracy per se.

I do think that by doing something clearly against his supposed constituency it's a signal to the powers that be that he is on board with the program.

I honestly don't buy the political expediency angle. Even Dems are not that stupid.

As we learned through the trials of the Nazis after WWII, one only gets prosecuted for War Crimes if one loses the War.

Hip-hip-hooray for our congressional Democrats.

They're the Misfeasance party in sniveling, groveling and virtually imperceptible opposition to the Malfeasance party.

Other than for the lack of a congressional quorum and the improvement resulting from paralysis of the legislative branch, would anyone even notice if they were to just stay home?

Pathetic.

Silash is exactly right. Article 8 from the War Crimes trials at Nuremberg:

"The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determine that justice so requires."

And nobody asked Mukasey to explain how his position squared with this fundamental principle of jurisprudence, imposed and enforced by the United States of America at Nuremberg, is somehow inapplicable to the actions of the Bush Administration? Oh, I forgot, that might be confrontational and the Democrats wouldn't want to offend anyone.

A friend, who is equally disgusted with the lack of action in washington, suggested that we scrap the whole thing and return to being part of the British empire. At least the debates in the House of Commons are on a more intelligent level, health care is afforable and the British people don't have to wait four years to get rid of noneffective leaders.

-- nananance

A recent issue of Harper's (I think it was June) had a piece comparing our government's relationship with their public and the press and the UK government's relationship with theirs. Over there, they are subjected to the third degree, called by first names, no Mr. President kind of thing, and no bowing and scraping, either, by the public or the media. Unlike here...

The hypothesis was that because they have actual royalty, they are able to channel that bowing and scraping into a more appropriate channel, and not into government.

Somehow, we've become what our forefathers and -mothers left England to escape, and they have become what our founders were. Go figure...

Of course, a recent profile of the Queen on PBS also demonstrated that she has a lot more on the ball diplomatically than GWB does, anyway, but that's no surprise!

Let me also add my thanks for what Greenwald has done and is doing. Good to know there's real enthusiasm for our constitutional liberties, the way they used to be, somewhere in this despoiled cultural landscape we call America.

I hope Salon realizes what an asset he is, before he grows too big for them. In fact, except for him and Juan Cole during the few times he appears, I don't think I'd bother much with the subscription. Bravo.

Thanks for the link! I tried to find out when that clause was written, because it sounds like it is looking back at FISA of 1978 and saying it is now "the exclusive means". I hope THIS PART was written in the 1970s and not just in 2006.

Regards,

-P